Category: Interviews

On the eve of his debut album Rich As In Spirit, Rich Homie Quan stopped by Rap-Up HQ to discuss his newest work and his current state.

“I’m in a positive place right now,” reveals the Atlanta rapper. “You can hear it in my music. I just feel good about the body of work that I’ve done. It’s mine. I’m excited to call it mine.”

The album title comes from a night in jail, where he was asked what his name means. “I end up going to jail,” he explains. “I had a [cellmate] by the name of Chicken. He was like, ‘I see your name is Rich Homie. What it stand for?’ I didn’t have a meaning, but the first thing he said was, ‘Rich as in spirit.’ It hit my spirit. I felt it, opposed to heard it. I didn’t hear it. I felt it…It stuck with me. I had to name my first album that.”

Earlier in the recording process, Rich Homie hit the studio with his idol Lil Wayne. “Who didn’t wanna be Wayne? At some point, I was growing braids trying to look exactly like Wayne,” he says. “When I realized how talented he was, it was over with. He already had me going from the look, then, when…I could read lyrics…I felt like it was relatable to the story I was going through…Wayne’s the G.O.A.T.”

He also collaborated with his celebrity crush Ashanti, however, their collaboration didn’t make the album. “She’s still fine,” he shares. “When I was in the studio with her, I’m trying to stay focused and keep it music, and professional. But I told her, ‘You know I like you.’ She shot me down.”

Quan first emerged on the scene as a member of Rich Gang. His partner-in-rhyme, at the time, was Young Thug. Today, they’re on separate paths, but R-H-Q said that doesn’t rule out future pairings. “Me and Thug got a whole lot of music,” he says. “That’s just ours. We’ve probably got over 100 songs the world ain’t ever heard. Music is timeless. I have no bad blood with Thug. It’s a good relationship. I wish him the best and hope he does the same for me.”

Shortly after making waves with “Emotional,” in which he details a fallout with Chris Brown, Bow Wow spoke exclusively with Rap-Up about the confessional track and why he would “never, ever, ever, ever” diss Breezy.

Sitting down at Rap-Up HQ, Shad Moss dissected his own rhymes. “This is the first time I’m breaking everything down,” he said. “We’ve both been through a lot of shit. We have. We don’t have to talk about what he’s been through. We both, through our own paths of life, have dealt with shit…Through our journey as young men progressing in the game, you’re gonna go through things. That’s what that meant.”

Although Bow Weezy says that they don’t speak to one another on “Emotional,” the Cleveland rapper insists he and Breezy don’t have beef. In fact, he says he’s never had beef with anybody.

“Me and Brown have never, ever been through anything,” he explained. “Beef is serious shit…Me pouring my emotions out, how I feel, that’s not a beef. That’s just some shit that’s on your mind. People have to stop using that word…Beef is what we witnessed with ‘Pac and Big. Beef is what we witnessed with 50 and Ja. Beef is when you can’t be in the same room…That’s beef. I’ve never had beef in my life.”

Adding to that, Bow said that he doesn’t see them feuding in the future, either. “I’m always gonna be cool with Brown for life,” he added. “No matter what. We’ve toured together, made a lot of money together, and shared a lot of priceless moments together too…It’s gonna always be respect. It’s gonna always be cool. I would never, ever, ever, ever diss somebody who I always had love for, who I got love for.”

Brown commented on “Emotional” via Instagram. “IM CONFUSED,” he wrote in response to the track, which was formerly titled “Drunk Off Ciroc.” “U good bro?”

But the two have yet to speak to one another about it. “I ain’t reply to it,” added Bow. “But I’m 100. I have no problem with nobody. That’s not what I’m in the game for.”

Ten years ago, Lil Wayne took the world by storm with “A Milli.” The boastful anthem arrived at a pivotal time in Weezy’s career, soundtracked by thunderous instrumentation. Everyone, it seemed, was hypnotized by the street single off Tha Carter III. Everyone, that is, except the song’s producer, Bangladesh.

“I kind of didn’t like it at first listen,” he tells Rap-Up, when reflecting on the anniversary.

“I was probably too slow to know what it was when I heard it,” he explains. “We didn’t make that song together…It kind of let me down to hear this song with no hook on it. We was conditioned to think things had to be structured a certain way, that it had to have this big hook, something relatable that people say and all that.”

“It’s an iconic moment for hip-hop and for the culture.”

He would later realize that “a milli,” the vocal sample that appears throughout, was the hook. But at the time, he couldn’t see that just yet. “I wasn’t thinking about it like that,” he adds. “I was thinking about putting a hook on the song.”

Still, instant fan reactions were hard to ignore. Some even offered mega-declarations. “I started hearing people say how it brought hip-hop back,” he recalls. “When legends were saying this, I started paying attention and started studying why they were saying it…I’m a hip-hop head so I started listening back. It was simple. 808s with drums and a chop, a sample. That’s hip-hop. Just raw drums. Boom-bap type shit. That’s what they meant. As soon as I started understanding what it is, I started understanding the impact that it had.”

And that impact was tremendous. “A Milli” created such an electrifying buzz for Tha Carter III that the album lived up to the song’s promise, moving a whopping one million units in a week. It would go on to win Best Rap Solo Performance at the 51st Annual Grammy Awards, where CIII was awarded Best Rap Album. Ten years removed, its influence remains alive today.

“It created a lot of Lil Wayne fans,” says Bangladesh. “There’s a lot of Lil Wayne babies today that we see just based off ‘A Milli’ coming out. There’s a lot of rappers right now that’s making it, that it inspired. There’s a lot of producers that’s making beats right now that, when they first heard ‘A Milli,’ that’s why they wanted to make beats. It’s impactful and I hear it all the time. It’s an iconic moment for hip-hop and for the culture.”

Ten years ago, Lil Wayne took the world by storm with “A Milli.” The boastful anthem arrived at a pivotal time in Weezy’s career, soundtracked by thunderous instrumentation. Everyone, it seemed, was hypnotized by the street single off Tha Carter III. Everyone, that is, except the song’s producer, Bangladesh.

“I kind of didn’t like it at first listen,” he tells Rap-Up, when reflecting on the anniversary.

“I was probably too slow to know what it was when I heard it,” he explains. “We didn’t make that song together…It kind of let me down to hear this song with no hook on it. We was conditioned to think things had to be structured a certain way, that it had to have this big hook, something relatable that people say and all that.”

“It’s an iconic moment for hip-hop and for the culture.”

He would later realize that “a milli,” the vocal sample that appears throughout, was the hook. But at the time, he couldn’t see that just yet. “I wasn’t thinking about it like that,” he adds. “I was thinking about putting a hook on the song.”

Still, instant fan reactions were hard to ignore. Some even offered mega-declarations. “I started hearing people say how it brought hip-hop back,” he recalls. “When legends were saying this, I started paying attention and started studying why they were saying it…I’m a hip-hop head so I started listening back. It was simple. 808s with drums and a chop, a sample. That’s hip-hop. Just raw drums. Boom-bap type shit. That’s what they meant. As soon as I started understanding what it is, I started understanding the impact that it had.”

And that impact was tremendous. “A Milli” created such an electrifying buzz for Tha Carter III that the album lived up to the song’s promise, moving a whopping one million units in a week. It would go on to win Best Rap Solo Performance at the 51st Annual Grammy Awards, where CIII was awarded Best Rap Album. Ten years removed, its influence remains alive today.

“It created a lot of Lil Wayne fans,” says Bangladesh. “There’s a lot of Lil Wayne babies today that we see just based off ‘A Milli’ coming out. There’s a lot of rappers right now that’s making it, that it inspired. There’s a lot of producers that’s making beats right now that, when they first heard ‘A Milli,’ that’s why they wanted to make beats. It’s impactful and I hear it all the time. It’s an iconic moment for hip-hop and for the culture.”

March 9th has been etched in hip-hop history as a day of mourning the death and celebrating the life of Christopher “The Notorious B.I.G.” Wallace, who was killed in a still-unsolved shooting in 1997 at the age of 24. Kareem “Biggs” Burke, co-founder of Roc-A-Fella Records, thinks of this date with even more meaning than most, since he knew the iconic MC.

“When I think about March 9th, I think about one of the greatest writers, the greatest personalities, one of the greatest people that’s gone,” he tells Rap-Up. “Big was really young. We lost…a great talent that, I think, would have been one of the best artists of all time, outside of hip-hop. What he left on this game, his mark is still living. I’m definitely happy about that, especially for his kids and his family. It’s something that’s truly missed.”

Biggie passed just months after Tupac Shakur died in a separate unsolved shooting. As two of the most iconic rappers that the genre has ever seen, their legacies remain intertwined, even for Biggs. “You’re gonna think about ‘Pac at the same time,” he adds. “Those are two people that I think would be game changers and I know the world wishes they were still here. They have the impact on us, just like Bob Marley does on music as well.”

Whenever loved ones talk about Biggie today, many remember the smiles and laughter that he brought along with him. Biggs is no exception, as he remembers their first meeting fondly. “That’s when we noticed their crew was really like ours,” he explains of the recording session for “Brooklyn’s Finest” between JAY-Z and B.I.G. “That’s what we do, we joke and play. Everybody’s really like brothers.”

After the session, both camps went to watch Bernie Mack perform a standup routine, but it was Biggie who made his friends laugh with a particularly impressive skill. “When Big got there, he was like, ‘I need some weed,'” Biggs recalls. “They got like an ounce of weed and Cease rolled like 60 blunts, and Big smoked all of them [laughs]. That was kinda crazy. I ain’t ever seen anything like that before.”

This friendship blossomed into one of the most legendary Monopoly games of all time, played on the set of the video for “Dead Presidents.” Big joined the Roc-a-Fella squad, playing the board game with real money. Great video concept, right? But Biggs says it was more than that. “Playing Monopoly with real money, that was just something that we did,” he said. “We had to floss. Also, at the same time, we had to front on Big and them too, because we didn’t drop an album yet so we was like, ‘What we talkin’ about is real.’ There was a respect level there, but you know, it was always friendly competition.”